Marking its 40th anniversary today is the fifth studio LP from Talking Heads, Speaking In Tongues. It was their first album after their split from producer, Brian Eno, and their most commercially successful release of their career.
After working on their previous LP, Remain In Light, the group took a bit of a hiatus to work on some solo and side projects. The group's rhythm section of Chris & Tina had made some waves with their Tom Tom Club album, so they brought back some of that dance focused bounce into the group for this album. While they had gone for an extremely layered, intricate kind of polyrhythmic approach on Remain In Light, the sound seemed more concise and stripped down for Speaking In Tongues. This likely played a big part in helping the group to make major commercial breakthroughs as the more refined sound played out much more accessibly on US radio. They'd also mastered the medium of the music video, so MTV were all too eager to give them plenty of airtime.
The tour which followed the release of the album ended up being documented on film and released as Stop Making Sense the following year. It served to further extend the band's popularity and the success of this album. While there are earlier albums which have more personal appeal to me, this one has grown the most on my in recent years. I neglected it a bit in the shadow of Fear of Music and Remain In Light, but it completely stands up to the level of those records, though perhaps in a less avant-garde kind of manner.
